Peking Municipal Revolutionary Committee Established

The Peking Municipal Revolutionary Committee, a revolutionary "three-in-one" provisional organ of power, was set up in the capital on April 20 under the guidance and with the solicitous concern of our great leader Chairman Mao. The chairman of the Committee is Hsieh Fu-chih* (Hsieh Fu-chih is a Vice-Premier of the Slate Council.); Wu Teh, Cheng Wei-shan. Fu Chung-pi and Nieh Yuan-tzu are its vice-chairmen. The founding of the Peking Municipal Revolutionary Committee proclaimed the total collapse of the old Peking Municipal Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and People's Council, an important stronghold of the handful of top Party persons in authority taking the capitalist road for the restoration of capitalism; it proclaimed the complete downfall of the counter-revolutionary revisionist clique of the old Peking Municipal Party Committee. Coming after the 1966 decision of Chairman Mao and the Party's Central Committee to reorganize the Peking Municipal Party Committee, it was a new great leap in the struggle of the capital's proletarian revolutionaries to seize power. The founding of the Peking Municipal Revolutionary Committee has carried the great proletarian cultural revolution in the capital to a completely new stage and set a fine example for people throughout the country. It shows that the great cultural revolution has solved a most important new problem in the proletarian revolution of our era; it has provided new experience in preventing a capitalist restoration after the seizure of power by the proletariat, and in consolidating and developing the dictatorship of the proletariat and carrying the socialist revolution through to the end. It has thus enriched and developed the Marxist theory of scientific socialism and added an immortal page to the annals of the international communist movement. On that day, a soaring spirit of revolutionary enthusiasm prevailed among the millions of the revolutionary people of the capital. It was a joyous, gala day for them. A hundred thousand people gathered in the capital's Workers' Stadium for the rally founding and celebrating the Revolutionary Committee. Comrade Chou En-lai, Standing Committee Member of the Political Bureau of the Party's Central Committee and Premier of the State Council, came to offer warm congratulations on behalf of the great leader Chairman Mao and his close comrade-in-arms Comrade Lin Piao, the Party's Central Committee, the State Council and the Military Commission of the Party's Central Committee. In his important speech he declared that the Party's Central Committee had approved the establishment of the Peking Municipal Revolulionary Committee. (For full text see p. 14.) A huge portrait in colour of the great leader Chairman Mao stood in the middle of the rostrum. Red flags flew over the stadium. Opposite the rostrum were placards inscribed with quotations from Chairman Mao: "We are not only good at destroying the old world, we are also good at building the new." and "All revolutionary struggles in the world are aimed at seizing political power and consolidating it. The desperate struggles waged by counterrevolutionaries against revolutionary forces are likewise solely for the sake of maintaining their political power." Before start of the rally, the great crowd of revolutionary workers and staff, poor and lower-middle peasants, commanders and fighters of the People's Liberation Army, revolutionary students and teachers, revolutionary cadres and revolutionary Peking residents, red-covered Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-tung in hand, read aloud in unison Chairman Mao's teachings. Big balloons floating overhead carried the slogans: "Long live the dictatorship of the proletariat!" "Hold high the great red banner of Mao Tse-tung's thought and carry the great proletarian cultural revolution through to the end!" "Proletarian revolutionaries of all China, unite!" "Workers of the world, unite!" "Long live our great teacher, great leader, great supreme commander and great helmsman Chairman Mao! A long, long life to him!" A "Message Saluting Chairman Mao" (full text on p. B) was adopted by the rally amidst enthusiastic cheers of "Long live Chairman Mao!" "A long, long life to Chairman Mao!" Among those who attended the rally were: Chen Po-ta, Standing Committee Member of the Political Bureau of the Party’s Central Committee and leader of the Cultural Revolution Group Under the Central Committee; Kang Sheng, Standing Committee Member of the Political Bureau of the Party's Central Committee and Advisor to the Cultural Revolution Group Under the Central Committee; Li Fu-chun, Standing Committee Member of the Political Bureau of the Party's Central Committee and Vice-Premier of the State Council; Chiang Ching. First Deputy leader of the Cultural Revolution Group Under the Party's Central Committee; Hsiao Hua, Member of the Party's Central Committee, Deputy Leader of the Cultural Revolution Group Under the Military Commission of the Party's Central Committee and Director of the General Political Department of the Chinese People's Liberation Army; Yang Cheng-wu. Alternate Member of the Party's Central Committee, Deputy Leader of the Cultural Revolution Group Under the Military Commission of the Party's Central Committee and Acting Chief of the General Staff of the P.L.A.; and members of the Cultural Revolution Group Under the Party's Central Committee. Chiang Ching and Hsieh Fu-chih addressed the rally. (Excerpts on p. 16 and p. 17.) Chang Chun-chiao. a deputy leader of the Cultural Revolution Group Under the Party's Central Committee and a responsible member of the Shanghai Municipal Revolutionary Committee, spoke on behalf of the delegations from Shanghai, Shansi, Kweichow, Heilungkiang and Shantung which attended the rally. He declared: Peking is where our great leader Chairman Mao lives; it is the capital of our great motherland and the centre of our proletarian revolution. In the great proletarian cultural revolution, the proletarian revolutionaries of Peking, under the direct leadership of the Party's Central Committee headed by Chairman Mao, have marched in the van in the battle and made special contributions and given especially meritorious service to the great proletarian cultural revolution of the country as a whole. Our great proletarian cultural revolution is in the high-tide of the struggle of the proletarian revolutionaries to seize power on the basis of their alliance. All-out criticism and repudiation of the top Party people in authority taking the capitalist road is starting throughout the country. The establishment of the Peking Municipal Revolutionary Committee at this important juncture is an immense encouragement to proletarian revolutionaries throughout the country. We are fully confident that born of revolutionary struggle, this provisional organ of power which is revolutionary, representative and has proletarian authority, will be able to lead the proletarian revolutionaries of the capital forward to continue their march in the van in the battle of the great cultural revolution in China and make still more brilliant contributions to the complete victory of the great cultural revolution in the capital and throughout ihe country; it will assuredly be able to build our great capital into a great school for the creative study and application of Mao Tse-tung's thought, a capital which will never change its colour, a model for the whole country and an example for the world.

Cerebrations in Peking and Elsewhere At meetings and parades over several days, the revolutionary people of the capital and other parts of the country enthusiastically celebrated the establishment of the Peking Municipal Revolutionary Committee. They looked on this as a great and joyous event for the people of Peking, of all China and the whole world, an event of great significance to the struggle of the proletarian revolutionaries throughout the country to seize power. Peking's factories, suburban villages, schools, government offices, shops and streets were in festive mood with drums beating and red flags fluttering everywhere. The slogan of "Long live Chairman Mao” and the revolutionary song Sailing the Seas Depends on the Helmsman echoed to the skies. Group after group of the revolutionary masses converged on the offices of the Party's Central Committee and the Peking Municipal Revolutionary Committee to deliver congratulatory messages. A sea of joyful people flowed over the great space of Tien An Men Square. Many revolutionary students and teachers and revolutionary artists gave performances in the square, enthusiastically propagating Mao Tse-tung's thought. Revolutionary artists and amateur cultural troupes of workers from Tientsin also put on shows. The revolutionary workers and staff of the Capital Iron and Steel Company at a celebration meeting pledged themselves to stand firmly on the side of Chairman Mao's revolutionary line, take firm hold of the revolution and promote production, and carry the great proletarian cultural revolution through to the end. They angrily denounced the handful of top Party persons in authority taking the capitalist road and the counterrevolutionary revisionist clique of the old Peking Municipal Party Committee for their heinous crimes. They swore to crush with their iron fists all ghosts and monsters big and small. Young Red Guards and revolutionary students and teachers of the capital's universities, colleges and middle schools held grand meetings to celebrate the occasion. The young Red Guards pledged themselves to do still better in creatively studying and applying Chairman Mao's works, strengthen their revolutionary spirit, scientific approach and sense of organizational discipline, and with greater fighting capability to overthrow and discredit the handful of top Party people in authority taking the capitalist road and eliminate their pernicious influence in all spheres. They vowed to do a thorough job in the tasks of struggle, criticism and repudiation, and transformation in their schools and make the great thought of Mao Tse-tung reign supreme in every sphere of education. Commanders and fighters of units of the P.L.A. Peking Garrison Command and units stationed in Poking who had performed fresh meritorious services in the capital's great cultural revolution elatedly hailed the birth of the Peking Municipal Revolutionary Committee. Meetings and parades were held by leading organs of the navy, air force, signal corps, artillery command and railway corps and units under them and the Institute of Bear-Services. Commanders and fighters helping with industrial and agricultural production in the factories, mines and rural people's communes held meetings to celebrate together with the revolutionary masses and revolutionary cadres. They declared that they would resolutely respond to the call of the great supreme commander, Chairman Mao and fight together closely with their comrades-in-arms— the proletarian revolutionaries, defend Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line and the dictatorship of the proletariat, and plant the great red banner of Mao Tse-tung's thought over all positions. In the afternoon of April 21, the proletarian revolutionaries and P.L.A. commanders and fighters in Shanghai held a grand meeting and parade to celebrate the establishment of the Peking Municipal Revolutionary Committee. Representatives of many units who spoke at the meeting declared that they would hold high the great revolutionary banner of criticism and repudiation and overthrow and discredit the handful of top Party persons in authority taking the capitalist road and the handful of counter-revolutionary revisionists, completely eliminate the pernicious influence of the book on "self-cultivation" of Communists, promote the formation of revolutionary great alliances and revolutionary "three-in-one" combinations by means of all-out revolutionary criticism and repudiation. They pledged their resolve to lake firm hold of the revolution and promote production, and do still better in the great cultural revolution in their own localities, departments or units. News of the establishment of the Peking Municipal Revolutionary Committee greatly encouraged the proletarian revolutionaries of Shansi. National model peasants Li Shun-ta and Wu Hou-li, and Hsieh Vueh, an activist in the study of Chairman Mao's works, excitedly declared that no words could fully express the boundless love of the workers and poor and lower-middle peasants for Chairman Mao, that they would follow Chairman Mao closely and wholeheartedly and always make revolution. Rallies in Kwei-yang in the southwest and Harbin in the northeast were each attended by 100,000 people. When the happy tidings reached Shantung, proletarian revolutionaries i n factories, mines, schools, shops and government offices in all parts of the province pasted up slogans which they had written during the night and took to the streets to celebrate, beating gongs and drums.

Press Comments

In its editorial "Enthusiastically Hail the Establishment of the Peking Municipal Revolutionary Committee," Renmin Ribao pointed out that the establishment of the Revolutionary Committee in the storm of the unprecedented great cultural revolution and in the new upsurge of the mass movement to thoroughly criticize and repudiate the No. 1 Party person in authority taking the capitalist road, represented a great victory for the proletarian revolutionary line represented by Chairman Mao, a great victory of tremendous significance in the struggle of China's proletarian revolutionaries to seize power. Peking was the source and centre of the great proletarian cultural revolution, said the editorial, every battle there affected the progress of the movement throughout the country. Bearing in mind Chairman Mao's leaching "You should pay attention to state affairs and carry the great proletarian cultural revolution through to the end," the proletarian revolutionaries of the capital stood firmly on the side of Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line and had made tremendous contributions to the great proletarian cultural revolution throughout the country. In its editorial "A Great Victory for Chairman Mao's Revolutionary Line," Beijing Ribao (Peking Daily) listed a host of facts to prove that the birth of the Peking Municipal Revolutionary Committee was a great victory won by the proletarian revolutionaries and revolutionary masses of the capital under the brilliant leadership of Chairman Mao after an arduous struggle;it was a great victory of Peking's proletarian revolutionaries in their struggle on the basis of an alliance to seize power from the counter-revolutionary revisionist clique of the old Peking Municipal Party Committee. The editorial said: This event of great historical significance will be engraved in the glorious annals of the Chinese revolution and the international communist movement in large, shining letters of gold. The proletarian revolutionaries in Peking will assuredly bear in mind our great leader Chairman Mao's teaching that while the prospects are bright, the road has twists and turns. The victory we have won today is only the first step in a 10.000-li long march. We will be confronted with militant tasks that are still more arduous and still greater. We must hold still higher the great red banner of Mao Tse-tung's thought, carry the great proletarian cultural revolution in Peking through to the end, build Peking into a great school of Mao Tse-tung's thought and the reddest city in the world, and make the greatest contributions to the international proletariat and the revolutionary people throughout the world!